True love is never utilitarian. I am well aware that, in novels and in plays, the fair heroine considerately falls in love with the brave man who, at a critical moment, saves her from a watery grave or from the lurid horrors of a burning building. It is very good of the lady in the novel. I admire the gratitude which prompts her romantic affection, and, nine times out of ten, my judgement cordially approves her taste. I know, too, that, in fiction, the sick or wounded hero invariably falls desperately in love with the devoted nurse whose patient and untiring attention ensures his recovery. It is very good of the hero. Again I say, I admire his gratitude and almost invariably endorse his choice. But it must be distinctly understood that this sort of thing is strictly confined to novels and theatricals. In real life, men and women do not fall in love out of gratitude. As a matter of fact, I am much more likely to fall in love with somebody for whom I have done something than with somebody who has done something for me.
I was talking the other day with a nurse in a children's hospital. It is a heartbreaking business, she told me. 'You get into the way of nursing them, and comforting them, and playing with them, and mothering them, until you feel that they belong to you. And then, just as you have come to love the little thing as though he were your own, out he goes. And he always goes out with his father or his mother, clapping his hands for very joy at the excitement of going home, and you are left with a big lump in your throat, and perhaps a tear in your eye, at the thought that you will never see him again!' Clearly, therefore, we do not fall in love as a matter of gratitude. The people who cling to us and depend upon us are much more likely to win our hearts than the people who have placed us under an obligation to them. If, instead of telling us that the heroine fell in love with the man who had saved her from drowning, the novelist had told us that the man who risked his life by plunging into the river fell in love with the white and upturned face as he laid it gently on the bank; or if, instead of telling us that the patient fell in love with the nurse, he had told us that the nurse fell in love with the patient upon whom she had lavished such beautiful devotion, he would have been much more true to nature and to real life. It is indisputable, of course, that, the rescuer having fallen in love with the rescued, she may soon discover his secret, and, since love begets love, reciprocate his affection. It is equally true that, the nurse having conceived so tender a passion for her patient, he may soon read the meaning of the light in her eye and of the tone in her voice, and feel towards her as she first felt towards him. But that is quite another matter, and is beside our point at present. Just now, I am only concerned with challenging the novelist's unwarrantable assumption that we fall in love out of gratitude. We do nothing of the kind. Love, I repeat, is never utilitarian. We may fall hopelessly in love with a thing that is of very little use to us; and we may feel no sentimental attractions at all towards a thing that is almost indispensable. If any man dares to dispute these conclusions, I shall simply produce a roll of linoleum in support of my arguments, and he will be promptly crushed beneath the weight of argument that the linoleum will furnish.